why can't I talk to you the way I want to?

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Susan Rothenberg, The Caribbean, 2015

I believe that the strength of a relationship is determined by the edges of communication. There’s nothing more dispiriting than the sense that there’s a conversation I want to have that I’ve failed to have. Often, the failure is not because the other person refuses to talk about the topic at hand, but rather that they can’t.

The question that feels most important to me in an intimate relationship is: Can we deal with hard things together, honestly? Can I share what’s actually going on with me, and have you respond in a compassionate way? Not that you can’t freak out in the moment or have an averse reaction, but: when you’ve thought about it and processed it, can you come back to me and say, Let’s work through this together?

So many of the most alienating and sad moments of my life have occurred when I’ve been really honest and the other person hasn’t been able to meet it. It’s only now that I understand what it takes and why it’s so rare—in order to fully communicate with someone, you have to be willing to go where they are, and where they are might be scary, insulting, or unpleasant.

It’s easy to say I’d do anything for you. It’s much harder when that “anything” is concretized. Often, the “anything” that is demanded is a radical form of empathy—the ability to extend yourself and actually understand why they feel how they feel.

There are so many times in my life when I’ve failed to do this, and often it’s when I think the other person is unreasonable. For instance: one time during my first year of college a high school friend told me that she was hurt by how absent I’d been after I’d started school. My instinct (and what I did, alas) was to Deny and Defend—I said I was sorry and I’d do better, but my instant internal framing was that she was In the Wrong and Expecting Too Much of Me. If I could go back now, I’d try a little harder to see it from her perspective.

Speaking of which: a life-changing Joe Hudson tip for me has been to say during conflict “I see it from your perspective.” Because that way you are acknowledging the legitimacy of the other person’s feelings while also preserving your right to your own perspective.

Of course, you can’t go there with everyone: it’s so, so exhausting. There’s been times when I’ve had to take breaks from certain friendships because we had a conflict and I just knew I did not have the stomach for actually hashing it out. I was mad at them, but I knew I was going to forgive them. So I took a couple of months to let myself calm down.